Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

After complimenting her on her outfit, Seth guided her and the five guards with her to the stadium administrative office, where Leana and Jane who were in direct control of the games' management, as well as the members of Yulecat's Fur, in charge of their safety, were waiting for them.

While the guards stayed in the huge Power Armors, their commander returned hers to the inventory to sit down at the table with Jane, Leana, and Seth. As a staff member supplied them with drinks, another brought Seth a bunch of papers.

“If you wish to take part in the Pythian games, you can fill out this form to register for the various disciplines. For your information, this is an exception because the deadline is technically over,” the bard reminded her and gave her the stack of paper.

Joannia's face derailed a little, as she obviously had not thought that there would be a deadline for registration. “Thank you,” she said a little embarrassed, but quickly hid it. She was definitely a lot younger than Seth would have expected, around the same age as Evee, maybe.

The true core of the conversation started with Joannia giving a brief recollection of the things that transpired in Epsilon and her role in many of them. She was the prominent daughter of the second biggest technology company that was seated in Epsilon.

“Ah, now I know why your name seemed so familiar!” Jane suddenly exclaimed. “You are the genius of Tag Corp,” she added with a great smile. “It’s a good thing someone of your caliber survived.”

“You know of her Jane?” the blacksmith couldn’t help but ask, seeing the woman’s gushing reaction. Mary also looked at her with a questioning look.

“Were you guys living under a rock or something? Tag Corp was a juggernaut, most of the communication tech we still use was built from their parts,” Jane elaborated. She was about to sing more praises when Joannia cleared her throat.

Jane realized that it probably wasn’t the best time to gush about a glorious past that was gloriously crushed by the apocalypse. “I’m sorry,” she apologized meekly and sat back in her chair.

“I-It’s okay. You said nothing wrong. It’s just, not a fond memory,” the commander said amiable.

The genius engineer continued her story after the short interruption. Like Gamma, Epsilon was able to cope with the start of the Apocalypse. She herself gained a class called “Tenacious Tinkerer”, an epic engineer class when she turned 16 about half a year after the cataclysm. Although things changed with monsters and dungeons appearing at random, they were able to manage themselves fairly well.

At least they thought they were. While many like herself started exploring the new possibilities magic brought with it, an enemy was growing in the darkness. In secret, their society was slowly infiltrated and corrupted. When people finally caught onto what was happening, many important figures had already been sabotaged, assassinated, or assimilated.

Seth knew the perpetrators behind these actions just too well, Demons. When the veil was lifted, the people of Epsilon were thrust into a brutal war as hell was summoned to their district, and demonic hordes overran those who were left.

“Bragmomal’s lackeys knew no mercy and there was no end to hordes… we had only one choice left.”

It didn’t help that around that time, cultivators also started appearing, kidnapping people and bringing them back to their world.

In a last-ditch effort, Tag Corp revealed their fangs. With Joannia as lead researcher, they had already started building various prototypes of weapons, vehicles, and flying vessels, that were a fusion of science and magic. Evacuating as many Civilians as possible, they sacrificed half their fleet to completely raze Epsilon and all of the summoning formations and demons in the city to the ground.

In the short respite after their last hopeless rise, it seemed that they had dealt a fatal hit to the demons, at a great cost of their own. After much hesitation, the survivors decided to leave Epsilon for good. They scavenged what they got, built what they could, and fled from the ruins of their home. It was a tragic story.

“Have you been on the move in the No Man's Land ever since you left Epsilon?” Mary asked concerned, but Joannia shook her head.

“We found shelter at a city in the No Man's Land called New Hope. We have been staying there for a while. Until we found that place we were worried to be the last people left,” she said with a wry smile.

“Are the giants still guarding the place properly ?” Seth asked curious.

New Hope was no news to the bard and the others. It was the birthplace of Pip and some of the other children under Karina. After fleeing from the Theocracy of Chains he had stayed there for a short while. Part of the people that fled with him had stayed there.

He had also made a promise to Pip that he would help her if she wanted to return there after coming of age. Unfortunately, Leana's efforts to place a Starta Village in its vicinity had been blocked at the time.

“You know about the giants? Did you visit New Hope before?” she asked back surprised.

“You could say that I'm the one who arranged those protectors for them,” Seth said humbly, earning an incredulous look from Joannia.

“Interesting. Yes, they have been doing a good job guarding the city, they even tried to stop us when we first arrived. They were an especially great help during a recent undead invasion. Thanks to them we were able to concentrate on rebuilding the city's facilities. We prepared to stay there until we got your transmission. It was the only reason we truly believed that at least Delta survived and sent out scouts to look for a route here.”

“Wait a moment, one step back. An undead invasion? In New Hope?” Leana was the first to speak up, but everyone at the table had the same thoughts. The troops of Arget Nore that went east to hunt people and vanished, they had actually fallen at the hands of Epsilon's fleets and the giants.

They had wiped out the main forces of the undead empire station in Urth. the giants alone were not strong enough for that. It was proof of Epsilon's formidable strength. When there were any doubts about them razing a whole district, even when Epsilon was on the smaller side, they were now gone.

“Yes, they suddenly appeared one day, aiming for the city. The giants had some casualties before we entered the fray,” the commander explained shortly.

“It's good to know New Hope is safe,“ Seth simply said with a smile. “And you repaired New Hopes facilities?” Seth asked, interested in a different point she mentioned.

“More or less. With the things we had and some repairs, we barely got them running at 20% of their original performance.” she offhandedly described getting machines and facilities that had stood still for decades back to working condition, like it just took some spit and elbow grease.

“However, when we got confirmation from our scouts that Delta survived and Minas Mar actually existed, we decided that we would like to immigrate here.” Joannia finally finished her story, getting to the core of the meeting. The people of Epsilon wished to find safety and shelter in Minas Mar.

“But why?” Leana asked with a questioning gaze. Disregarding everything they just heard; this was a negotiation. This was about inviting a new group of citizens into their domain and the conditions of it. However, unlike the crowds of refugees and citizens that had come to Minas Mar previously, they were a well-organized group with the power to stand their ground in Urth’s wilderness.

“Don’t you have a powerful fleet? With the power you described, you should be able to stay anywhere you want. Why would you not stay at New Hope, despite going to the trouble of doing repairs?” Leana pinpointed the plot hole in their request. They had the power to seek freedom, why did they choose to join someone else? Joannia smiled apologetically.

“You are right, if we had a “powerful fleet” we may not have decided to leave New Hope, despite the many problems with the old infrastructure. I won’t lie to you; things aren’t as rosy for us.” The commander said openly. Despite the thick power armors, the guards became visibly nervous. This was a delicate topic.

“I mentioned how we left Epsilon, right? Apart from the few surviving prototypes our fleet is just a bunch of cobbled together tin cans. Although we tried improving them, but we never really got the opportunity. Even then, it was okay as long as we had shells, well...

We used most of our ammunition against the undead and our energy supply was barely enough to hold them in the air. Not to mention energy weapons most of them don’t even have a shield…” As she talked, the frustration in her voice became very clear. It was obvious that these were problems that bothered her for a long time and that were the topic of many discussions in the past.

“Staying at New Hope, or anywhere else of that matter, would just lead to further decline until we die off one by one… That is why we decided to come here.”